Remdesivir has no effect on survival: WHO

October 16, 2020 19:27

Anti-viral drug remdesivir has little to no effect on Covid patients' chances of survival, a study from the World Health Organization has found.

The WHO trial evaluated four potential medications for Covid-19, including remdesivir and hydroxychloroquine.

Remdesivir was among the first to be used to treat coronavirus, and was recently given to US President Donald Trump when he was in hospital.

The drug's manufacturer Gilead rejected the findings of the trial.

For its Solidarity clinical trial, the WHO tested the effects four potential treatments - remdesivir, an Ebola drug, was one, but they also looked at malaria drug hydroxychloroquine, auto-immune drug interferon, and the HIV drug combination of lopinavir and ritonavir.

The results, which are yet to be peer-reviewed, suggest that none of these treatments has a substantial effect on mortality or on the length of time spent in hospital, the WHO said on Thursday.

WHO chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said on Wednesday that their trials on hydroxychloroquine and lopinavir/ritonavir were stopped in June because they had already proven ineffective. However, the other trials continued.

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